Originally Posted by bikingshearer

Great score, and welcome to the fraternity. I have no doubt it will ride like a champ.

To my eye, the top and down tubes look oversized, which might explain the fillet brazing. I also note that there is what looks like thin lugs around the very top and very bottom of the head tube, but they sort of disappear at the rear of the "lug." I have no idea what it means, but it's a cool detail.

My understanding is that Cooper mixed and matched tubes as he saw fit. My 1982ish one also has no tubing sticker. I'd be interested to know what tubes he used, more out of curiosity than anything else - I figure if it was good enough for Ron Cooper to build with it, it's good enough for me to ride it.

I see yours has the block letter down tube graphics rather than the thin-lettered script decals that were sometime used. Since I prefer the block lettering, that's a plus as far as I'm concerned. Yours also has some standard Ron Cooper details. Every Cooper I've seen had that seat cluster arrangement. The little diamond "C" on the head tube was one of several common motifs; he also used the "Cooper" decal on your seat tube as a head tube graphic and also a different decal that said "Cooper" on the head tube with diagonal rainbow stripes (that's what mine has). He also sometimes had the little "C" embedded in the windows of one or more headtube lugs. The seat tube could have either of the aforementioned decals facing front, the diamond "C" that is on your head tube, or "Cooper" or "Ron Cooper" decals running up and down the sides with or without rainbow rings above and below the decal, The one constant in the graphics department was "Ron Cooper" on the downtube - everything else could shift among a small set of his standard items, making each frame's graphics at the same unique and recognizable.

Ron Cooper was a one-man operation (with the occasional helper/apprentice). For a top-drawer British racer, I bet he could be persuaded to put an entire bike together, but he mostly sold frames, not complete bikes.